Central Presbyterian Church

Central Presbyterian Church stands at the corner of Charlton Avenue West and Caroline Street South. The congregation traces its origins to 1841, when ten members and two adherents formed what the City’s heritage inventory calls the United Associate Church of Hamilton, meeting in a schoolhouse at Jackson and MacNab Streets. It later built a church on Merrick Street and in 1858 a much larger one on the schoolhouse site, and as the United Presbyterian Church of Hamilton it was later renamed Central Presbyterian. After fire destroyed that church in 1906, the congregation moved to its present site, where a new church designed by John M. Lyle, son of its minister, the Reverend Samuel Lyle, was dedicated in June 1908 with a new Casavant organ. The inventory describes it as a brick church in the Colonial Revival style with an ornate bell tower and a portico.

The City’s inventory records that in 1925 the congregation voted by a majority of seventeen to remain Presbyterian. Four of its ministers were elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada: Samuel Lyle in 1909, William Barclay in 1940, A. Lorne Mackay in 1976 and Alan M. McPherson in 1995. The Reverend Hannah Lovaglio is its minister, and the church hosts the Music@Central concert series.

Sunday worship is at 10:30 a.m., in person and livestreamed, with a staffed nursery and the Faith Finders children’s program during the service.

What to expect

Greeters meet people at the front doors, with an adult bulletin and a children's bulletin. The service is traditional, 'open and relaxed', and in the Reformed tradition includes congregational hymns, an Affirmation of Faith, scripture readings, teaching for children and a sermon, with a choir; it lasts about an hour. People wear anything from suits and ties to jeans and T-shirts. Children are welcome to stay throughout, or may go to Faith Finders after the teaching for children and return for the blessing.

What Presbyterians believe and how they worship